{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":50141,"auction_id":99,"set_id":131,"lot_number":"50","artist":"Leslie De Chavez (b. 1978)","title":"Mr. Chin's Pet Project","starting_price":1300000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 2008","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"77\" x 77\" (196 cm x 196 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Arario Gallery, Seoul, Korea; Christie's, Asian Contemporary Art, \nHong Kong, 29 May 2016, Lot 172","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"Banana republic' in the Philippine context refers to the country's export-oriented and import- dependent economy. Contemporary artist Leslie de Chavez draws on the term, producing a darkly satirical work titled Mr. Chin's Pet Project that lampoons imperialism and its economic framework of neoliberalism. De Chavez places the subject in the middle of a construction of a massive industrial site, likely an export processing zone (EPZ), which the UN International labor organization defines as \"industrial zones with special incentives set up to attract foreign investors, in which imported materials undergo some degree of processing before being exported again.\"
The viewer's attention shifts to Mr. Chin, who holds a crocodile's snout with a rope, revealing its mouth full of bananas, an explicit allusion to the 'banana republic.' A policeman, whose hat conceals his face, casually assesses the crocodile as if petting and taming it.
In this work, de Chavez depicts the grim reality in these enclaves. With his relaxed body language, the policeman represents the fascist agents of the ruling class. The workers are rendered as silhouetted figures in the background, symbolizing their precarious working conditions in special industrial zones. There, the workers' rights to freedom of association and labor unionism are suppressed. This kind of repression benefits the ruling elite, as a \"no-union-no- strike policy\" silences the workers' calls for security of tenure and wage hikes, so compradors and foreign capitalists can greedily accumulate more profits and continue to impose cheap labor. Mr. Chin represents the local compradors supervising the industrial zones. The crocodile is an allegory for bureaucrat capitalism, in which high- ranking government officials, most of whom come from the comprador class, treat governance as a business to uphold their self-serving interests.
The local compradors are also the chief trading agents of foreign monopoly capitalists, who manipulate our economy. As agents, they own multinational corporations, which are anchored to the companies of foreign capitalists, to whom they remit huge profits. They own vast haciendas and engage in massive land grabbing from indigenous peoples. They are also known as the big comprador-landlord class in relation to their semi-feudal character. They monopolize agribusinesses, trading companies, banks, real estate, etc. Their exploited laborers engage in the production of raw materials and semi-processed goods for export to foreign capitalists, from whom they heavily import most of their means of production and manufactured goods before selling them at higher prices. They control essential commercial, financial, and service facilities that are not direct subsidiaries of foreign capitalists. Hence, the reason why they retain the backwardness of the economy and hamper national industrialization.
The \"special relationship\" between the big comprador- landlord class and foreign capitalists engenders a semi- colonial and semi-feudal Philippine society. Foreign capitalists benefit from cheap raw materials and cheap labor while maximizing their profits. Compradors employ the cheap labor of seasonal farm workers and pillage local agriculture by demanding for and collecting a large amount of agricultural surplus for local processing and eventually, for export. Higher prices of imports than exports result in a balance-of-payments deficit, tying the government to foreign loans to pay for the cost of imports and resulting further in an increased percentage of labor exportation, cheaper labor within the country, and privatization of government properties, which both benefit the two classes. Laws have been enacted establishing EPZs, in which fiscal incentives and flexible labor policies are implemented to attract more foreign direct investments. Foreign capitalists benefit from these laws, which their comprador allies in the government have advanced.
De Chavez offers a microcosm of the ills of Philippine society in a single composition. Here, the artist boldly pronounces his powerful critique on a government whose primary purpose is to act as a subservient lapdog to the interests of foreign capitalists and the local elite—a government hell-bent on accumulating wealth for its oppressive overlords rather than pursuing the building of \"a just and humane society.\" (A.M.)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":"
Leslie De Chavez (b. 1978) Mr. Chin's Pet Project signed and dated 2008 oil on canvas 77\" x 77\" (196 cm x 196 cm)